There are three types of relationships; there are careful, careless and caring relationships. A careful relationship is when you walk on eggshells around the other one. It is a wife too scared to speak her mind to her husband about him excluding her parents. Or a husband too insecure to stand up to his wife who shares her issues about him with her mother. If you are too careful to be real it means you will battle to build a relationship of mutual respect and comfort.

A careless relationship is a relationship where you don’t care about your impact on the other one. It is for instance a husband not caring about the impact of how he speaks about his in-laws. Or a wife not wanting the kids to go to their paternal grandparents because she favours her own parents. A careless relationship creates distance and separation.

A warm and caring relationship shows you care about your impact on the other one. You consider how your decisions, behaviour and actions impact on the rest of your family. It is for example a husband who understands how it warms his wife’s heart when he values her parents. Or a wife making his parents as important as her own. A caring relationship shows compromise and give and take.

It is human nature to be fluctuating between careless and careful behaviour. You become careless when you put yourself on the pedestal and the other one in the pit. You become careful when you put yourself in the pit and the other one on the pedestal. A warm and caring relationship is where you consider your family member and you as equals.

Treat everyone with respect, dignity and unconditional acceptance. What you give out will come back to you.